My bank’s ATM has a small area on the envelopes you use to make a deposit in to the ATMs where you are supposed to write the total of the deposit.
When I got to the ATM today with the endorsed check and the deposit slip, I realized I had no pen. So I just shoved the stuff in the envelope and finished the transaction.
Is there any particular reason the bank wants you to write out the total on the envelope other than that it might make it a little easier for them to balance out the machine in the morning? After all, they know what account to credit.
One reason is that it helps YOU remember the amount you’re depositing. If I get a paycheck for 297.54 and I write it on the deposit envelope, then I can easily enter that amount into the ATM machine.
I don’t think it matters. My bank, Bank of America, just started using bank envelopes with a big red ‘X’ on where you used to write the amount. Many of the old ones still use the ones where you write your name and amount. It can’t be that important.
That’s a good point. There have been many times where I had to deposit checks, filled out the deposit slip, sealed the envelope, and then promptly forgot what the exact total was when I got to the machine. :smack:
Usually I just enter the approximate amount at the ATM and the bank adjusts it once they process the check.
Actually, you don’t need to include a deposit slip at all when making a deposit via ATM. Deposit slips are for teller transactions. Your information is printed on the outside of the envelope as you feed it in.
I’ve never seen deposit slips at an ATM. Only envelopes. I really don’t even know if my B of A deposit envelopes have a place to write things. I learned that you don’t need to put a deposit slip in the ATM when I deposited a couple hundred in cash and forgot to put one in. I come home, call the 800 number, and the CSR informed me that the printing when you insert it takes care of everything. That was about 5 years ago, and I’ve been just putting cash or endorsed check in the envelope since, and it hasn’t caused any problems.
If you don’t feel like writing anything on the outside of an ATM deposit envelope, you really don’t have to. When you deposit an envelope, the ATM prints some information on the outside of the envelope, including a date/time stamp, the dollar amount deposited, and your card number, along with a code indicating the banking network you are a member of (this is for deposits made in out-of-network ATMs).
There are some scenarios where it would be desirable to write on your envelope, though. When I worked in a bank, there was one time where the ATM malfunctioned, somehow managing to tear up the envelope, spilling the checks out into the guts of the ATM, withput damaging the checks themselves. The information written on the outside of the envelope helped us to make sure that the checks were credited to the correct customer (though we would have been able to do that without the envelope, anyway).
I would recommend writing your account number underneath your endorsement on every check you deposit through the ATM. No, this is not absolutely necessary, a point I have conceded in the past to customers with a bizarre aversion to performing this simple task. But doing so will save your friendly bank teller a lot of hassle in the unlikely event that the ATM really gets screwed up.
Oh, don’t deposit cash through the ATM. If it really comes down to it, it’s your word against theirs.
My bank, which until recently was named something that rhymes with Spank Nun and is now named something that rhymes with Face, requires a deposit slip in the envelope for ATM deposits. The last time I skipped this step because I was out of the pre-printed ones that come with my checks and they didn’t have any at any of the ATMs, they posted a little nasty-gram at the ATMs stating that a deposit slip is required for ATM deposits. As far as the stuff on the outside of the envelope, I don’t know that it’s necessary, except for the box to denote whether it is a deposit or a payment, but I fill it out anyway on the theory that if it helps prevent them from screwing up my deposit, it’s worth the extra 30 seconds. YBMV.
My bank, too, has a note saying that a deposit slip is REQUIRED on ATM deposits.
However, if I don’t happen to have one, I don’t include one. So far they’ve always credited my deposit just fine, although possibly this is going somewhere on my Permanent Record.
This is the same kind of thinking as my local post office, which has a row of envelopes lined up outside. “Stamped mail–letter size only!” “Metered mail–Letter Size Only!” etc. For a long time the very first one you came to in the drive=through said, “All others.”
What? How do you know if it’s all others if you don’t know what the other choices are?
SO I pretty much got into the habit of just dumping everything into one box, without trying to figure out whether my Netflix return was letter sized. If I happen to have all stamped mail it goes in “Stamped” and if I only have metered it goes in “metered,” but that’s as far as I’m going to make the PO sorters’ jobs easier for them. The PO has yet to return something and tell me I put it in the wrong box.
I guess every bank must do it differently, because I’ve beenk banking at Bank One for the last 12 years, as well as Bank of America, and I have never seen a deposit slip near an ATM. Just an envelope, where you can write details like name, account number, and amount on the outside of the envelope.
Wells Fargo has a really cool new ATM that doesn’t even require envelopes! You get a photo printout of the check for your receipt. Damn, technology is cool!
Hmmm. Curious. My bank rhymes with yours, but they’ve never said anything about requiring deposit slips with ATM deposits. (FWIW I only make deposits at ATM’s “owned” by that bank; I always fill out the envelopes; and I never include a deposit slip unless I’m depositing more than one check at a time).
Individual branch managers can make some of their own rules. I remember one branch lost my account (changed banks and everything) when a teller wanted to charge me a 5% fee to deposit coins into my own account.
Deposit slip? I don’t even know what that is. The rare cheques that I get that need to be manually deposited (so they are not directly deposited by my employer/government) I just stick in an envelope provided by the bank at the ATM. I don’t even endorse these cheques, nor is there any spot to put any kind of writing on them. Seems like you yankees have a much more complicated ATM system then us canucks. I have never had a problem with cheques not clearing or being put on a hold for along period either.
At TD Canada Trust, not only do you not need a deposit slip for an ATM deposit, you also do not need one for a deposit at a bank teller! They just give you a receipt to show what you gave them. I haven’t used deposit slips for years.
I happen to also have a Spank Nun/Face account, and I’ve never had to use a deposit slip; and this was while temping and depositing my paycheck at the local ATM every week. What kind of checking account do you have?
My job in the cash vault at Wells Fargo used to include stripping the cash from ATM deposits. No deposit slip required, no writing required on the outside of the envelope. The machine automatically prints a number on every envelope that gives the ATM location and transaction number if it needs to be looked up. The cash is manually counted and replaced with a cash ticket, and it doesn’t matter what is written on the envelope. The checks are sent off to the proof department where I assume they are processed either with a machine or by hand, and I doubt writing on the envelope comes into play there either. It might make things a little easier, sure. I know for me it helped to count knowing what it should add up to, but it was never neccesary or important.
